1. Summary of the Invention
The present invention relates to safety or first aid apparatus. In another aspect, the present invention relates to mobile safety or emergency apparatus. In still another aspect, the present invention relates to mobile safety or first aid apparatus for treating skin and eye exposure to hazards of chemical splashes.
2. Description of the Related Art
Worker exposure to chemical hazards is a safety issue that reaches across industry lines concerning not only workers in such obvious industries as the petrochemical and chemical industries, but also includes such other industries, such as, for example, agriculture where workers may suffer exposure to chemicals such as pesticides.
Various federal and state occupational and safety health agencies address the problem of worker exposure to chemical hazards and require certain types of equipment to be available for first aid response in the event of skin and eye exposure to chemical hazards. Such first aid equipment generally includes emergency showers and eyewash stations.
For example, in California, CAL-OSHA standard 8CCR 5162 is the general industry regulation requiring the installation of emergency shower and eyewash equipment in potentially hazardous areas, many of which may be remote from permanent facilities having an abundance of facilities and treated water. The shower requirements are detailed in Section B which references ANSI Z358.1-1981, section 4 or 9, as the equipment standard. For instance, now eyewash fountains are required wherever there are activities proceeding for maintaining pipelines, which are well known to run through remote terrain. Simplisticly, eyewash capability must now be present wherever there are workmen.
Section 4 of ANSI Z358.1-1981 details the requirements for shower equipment performance, installation, test procedures, maintenance and training. Under this section, safety showers are required to provide a minimum of 30 gallons of potable water per minute, creating a substantially disbursed pattern not less than 20 inches in diameter, 60 inches above the level on which the user stands. The recommended minimum drench time in an emergency shower is 15 minutes to fully irrigate and dilute a chemical exposure.
Over 450 gallons of water, weighing over 3700 pounds is required to meet this standard, creating a hardship when a work site is temporary or without any hard plumbed potable water facilities.
The remote work site in pipeline exploration and production industries and agriculture also have to contend with off-road logistics, limiting the vehicles selected and used in regularly scheduled activities. For these work groups, it is not practical nor sometimes even possible to transport nearly 4000 pounds of water and first aid equipment to these sites.
A drench hose for irrigating a portion of the body is a viable alternative to showers which cascade water over the entire body in these remote locations. Drench hoses are described in section 8 of ANSI Z358.1 1990 standard as single stream products designed to provide a controlled flow of potable water to a portion of the body at a velocity low enough so not to be injurious to the user. Because of the inability to wash both eyes simultaneously, drench hoses do not serve as suitable eyewash facilities. Drench hoses are required to proved a minimum of 3.0 gallons of potable water per minute, but currently lack a minimum stay requirement.
One attempt to solve the problem was to install a portable drench hose and eyewash station into the side of especially designed compartmental bodies for a utility truck. However, these prior art units are limited since they are not transferable from truck to truck, and cannot easily be removed from the truck and set up at a remote job site to allow other use of the truck. Therefore, the need remains for easily portable eyewash and drench equipment which will satisfactorily operate from a number of readily available vehicles, such as pickup trucks and, at the same time, be removable to set up at a remote work site.